Sherlock Alphabet Drabbles
by lemonn
Summary: Very drabbly drabbles from moments in John and Sherlock's lives that interest me/are stuck in my head. A variety of genres, but hurt/comfort will probably feature a lot. Read in any order.
1. Afghanistan

The cool unblinking gaze was unmoving on his.

"Afghanistan," said the man.

John barely heard the next words words (_or Iraq?_). The A word, taboo for everyone, and so it became with John. When his therapist mentioned it, the dam always broke and in the fierce flow of pressured memories, he could only keep his face tight shut in red and white defence, denial and desperation. John Watson, drowning in a therapist's office.

"Afghanistan," he said back, and he was surprised to hear his voice was soft, and there was no flood. Just a single, manageable memory: Patrick, clad in a layer of sunny dirt, squinting at John, as behind Patrick light and fire and perhaps the sun itself pumped the air and Patrick to a pop of red.

Afghanistan, John repeated in his head again. Perhaps he could cope with the detached way this new man mentioned it. No flood. Just a trickle he could wipe away.


	2. Blood

Sherlock flicks over a piece of paper and grimaces. The prick of a finger? A dot of red? Surely?

But no, blood is gushing out of Sherlock.

"Sher-"

My head swims; I close my eyes.

_A girl is wheeled in, green and red and groaning and rolling, a contrast on white sheets. I snap on gloves, imagining Harry dying away from home in the hands of a stranger. Orders are barked; assurances are whispered; she cannot die._

_I say what he says to Harry every time she's in pain._

_"It will be okay."_

_I pull up her shirt to reveal the wound on her stomach._

_"Keep breathing-"_

_She is still groaning; a sheen of sweat on her brow; biting her lip._

_"And you will make it."_

_My fingers are flowing between hers, like water filling cracks._

With a jolt, my eyes open. Sherlock is so close that his choppy black hair brushes my cheek like yesterday's paint brush; black eyes on mine; frowning .

"You- My God-."

I grab Sherlock's hand.

"A paper cut, John."

Sherlock is holding up a finger blotted with red. There is a moment before clarity, and I realize. Slowly, I sit down on the armchair that Sherlock has apparently swung behind me.

"She died," I say blankly.

Sherlock nods, somehow knowing exactly who I am talking about.

"I thought you- Too- The red-" I continue, aware my voice is barely a rustle, the fear slowly dissipating. "She died."

Sherlock's fingers flow between mine, like water filling cracks. Softly stroking. He does not need to speak.


	3. Crutches

They are standing outside the hospital, on a cold wintry day and John just wants to get home. Sherlock, though, does not – or not by crutch. He is using them like a toy, swinging his broken leg back and forth, and experimenting whether they grip on all materials.

"I think I can walk," he announces after ten minutes of experimentation.

"Great Sherlock..." replies John, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to bring a little warmth, before gesturing to a nearby taxi. "Just get in the taxi now? You may be clever but the sheer power of your mind doesn't stop your leg being broken."

Sherlock, sprinting up and down one particular icy pavement in Soho at midnight last night, for a reason still unexplained to John, had fallen. Luckily, he already had a crowd around him who were willing to help. Much to the annoyance of the local pub, its customers had chosen to abandon their drinks and watch Sherlock's odd behavior So Sherlock had been brought to hospital by a dozen amused drunks, who had phoned John, as the only contact on Sherlock's mobile not filed under an insulting nickname, and asked if they could borrow Sherlock for their next night out - and that, by the way, he was in hospital.

"I am now an invalid," says Sherlock. "Do you know what that literally means? I am not a valid a person and-

"Sherlock!" John looks left and right, before shaking his head at the detective. "You _can't_ say things like that-"

"And I will not tolerate it."

Wobbling slightly, Sherlock throws one crutch on the ground and then, thin-lipped, the other.

"Look are you going to get in the taxi?"

"Not until I've found a way to defeat these demoralizing Hell objects..."

"Fine, make your own way home!"

"Watch John. I can walk!"

Before John can turn, Sherlock as already begun to step forward. Though John isn't looking, he can almost feel the pain himself simply from Sherlock's wrenching gasp. John looks back and Sherlock's usually pale face is red. Sherlock blinks twice, and shakes his head as if shooing away an irksome fly, before once again picking up his crutches, using them to get past John and into the taxi.

John raises his eyebrows and joins Sherlock.

"I told you s-"

"Be careful," Sherlock interrupts. "Crutches make a great weapon."

* * *

**A/N: holy shit I tried some humour, though it's probably not very funny I actually cannot remember the last time I wrote something light. Well I hope you enjoyed. Now I just need to think of D.**


	4. Drugs

John had not been here for a fortnight; he had no cases. What else was there in the world to do?

**Sherlock, whatever you're about to do, don't. MH**

Anthea had been spying on him again. Probably had seen him itching for a case, for John. Probably had reported it to Mycroft.

**I'm bored. SH**

Sherlock grabbed his coat and scarf, and in one swoop was wearing them both. He swung out the door. The irritating thing about not getting paid for your work was that – of course – you had to rely on your older brother if you wanted to survive and not break the law too much doing so. It was annoying when your older brother could freeze your account. Like now.

**I will not have you resort to minor crime. MH**

Not so hard to come by products without money in this world though, when you were Sherlock.

**What are your feelings about ****major**** crime? SH**

He walked briskly down the stairs. God, he had needed to _move_. The flat had been too overcrowded. Can't think; can't think; can't think. Need a distraction. Need a case. Stepping outside Baker Street, he felt free. He was, though, going to find someone worthwhile to talk to. Human didn't work; it would have to be someone inside his own brain. He could feel his phone vibrate in his pocket. Mycroft.

The LSD had been easy enough to get hold of. When you knew where to go. When you knew how to threat the leakage of a certain drug dealer's credit card details. You didn't need money then.

Sherlock. took it on an alley he knew that only 3-5 people had been down in the last 2 years; very unlikely to be found. Patterns, were the first thing he saw. Pretty patterns, but like in a nightmare, they got larger and morphed into monsters.

Spinning. Grinning. Winning. The ground moved, a leering bloody rim appears; Sherlock tripped over himself as he backs into a wall; suddenly John's face, but he cannot reach it. Patterns again, spinning around John.

Distraction, distraction, distraction.

His hands were immensely interesting; he spent an hour staring at them.

A case! The police station had lots of unsolved cases.

Sherlock stumbled to the police station, and willed the list of missing towards him through the window (Donovan was in there, and her skin seemed to have grown scales) but it wouldn't come. Instead, he climbed through the window (the pretty patterns climbed in with him; the triangles found it awkward) and tried to crawl round the sides of the lounge. Donovan watched him oddly the whole way, but he thought she was oblivious to his presence. He grabbed the list of the names of the missing, and slowly climbed back out of the window.

It took her a moment to come to.

"Freak!" she shouted, but he had already scuttled away.

Around the corner, hidden in a bush, he fell to the floor, into the floor, breathless, and the patterns shrunk, and wrapped around him instead, clapping him, congratulations genius, and he let all his breath out until his lungs disappeared…

The list lay forgotten on the floor, he was retching and his insides wanted to see the outside world. A huge buzzing in his thigh; an electric saw; a helicopter, the blades spinning his flesh into pieces, up and up, rising and taking off until his brain was in pieces too; the buzzing would never stop; it was his brain vibrating now; hot, cold, in his head, making his teeth shake, biting his lips, blood drawn, hot cold, Sherlock, alone. He needed a doctor, but there was no doctor here. No John.

A car appeared, and the world loved him.

"Sherlock!"

A palm cupped round his cheek. Arms on him. Frowns. The patterns dispersed. They no longer buzzed. The helicopter was gone. John's face formed.

"I'm here…Sherlock, I'm here. I'm here."

Sherlock heard someone gasp, as he looked dizzily upwards. Perhaps it had been him. John is staring at him.

"You're back."

"I'm back," agreed John, his face coming even closer until it was all Sherlock saw.

"John."

Sherlock tried to stand up but his hands shook so much couldn't hold the air properly and he lurched forward.

"Easy… Oh God, Sherlock."

Sherlock falls, but for some reason the ground turns into an arm and he never feels it. John. The warm fuzziness of a jumper around him. Sherlock's arm is brought around John's shoulder and it is familiar, stabilizing, John. And though Sherlock knows he is being brought back to Baker Street, it is a Barker Street with John, and a Baker Street with John is a Baker Street worth going to. One that cannot contain boredom.

"No more bored," murmurs Sherlock, but he doesn't think John can hear him.

"Can you walk?"

"I can do anything," replies Sherlock, stumbling forward as he takes a step. John's arm is suddenly tighter around him, and Sherlock wonders if he should trip again, but they are at the car now, and John is turning to him, face dark but eyes full of light.

"Sherlock," his voice is sharp, and jumpy like it's containing something. "You can't do that to me again."

Sherlock wonders how he can reply, so says the only thing he knows to be true, the only reasoning is brain can currently compute or think about. "You were gone for too long, too long."

_For too long, too long._

Mycroft was there too, with sharp words, but it didn't matter because John had been away and he was there now and he had been gone for too long, too long.

* * *

**A/N: No I have no idea why I wrote that either. Nope.**

**I don't want Sherlock to be pathetic, but in my mind John was gone for whatever reason, a holiday with his girlfriend for a few weeks perhaps, and Sherlock was having a tough time alone which just peaked in this.**

******Thank you for reading and, of course, reviews (like any fanfic author) are my fuel and very much appreciated.**  



	5. Experiment

I love experiments. Especially on people. However much they thought their emotions are their own, they all react in accordance to an exact set of rules, in any given situation. Uniqueness is not a human trait.

I loves experiments, but not when I don't understand the results. Sometimes the chemical, or the person, in their own odd mix of genes, memories and environment, react unexpectedly. Uniquely. Illogically. He is one which had a unique result, as shown list of the things I don't understand:

Why did he, after I explained how I knew his sibling ( _sister_) was an alcoholic, not say "piss off" but "amazing"?

Why did he accept to live with me?

Why does he still live with me?

Why does he defend me?

Why does he bother?

Why does he try to understand, rather than immediately dismiss, my disinterest in the solar system and all things other than those immediately relevant to work?

Why does he bother?

Why has chosen he to become my friend?

I love experiments, even occasionally, once, those that are unique. The experiment should have really been titled with my own, not my companion's, name, for I've discovered a part of myself that never knew could exist: my colleague will never make any sense to me, because by choosing to follow me he has made the illogical choice. However, I've found myself accepting that I will never understand, happy to mull over this problem for the rest of my life. When my own genes and memories are reacted with his, and when his genes and memories are reacted with my own, the result is unexpected and far too ground-breaking to try to understand: that I like just being with John Watson.


	6. Fix

Now I see the full extent of the paradox; John Watson, the most human human being I have ever known, a war-addict: however much it hurts him – nightmares; sweat, pulse, screams – he craves more. And so the addict found me. And so I, the addict, found him. The drug-addict and the war-addict. A psychologist's fantasy. Though I often itch for a joint, the bigger itch has always been for the work. The drugs are for when the game is paused, and there must be something else to play. Now, instead of craving a peep at bacteria, to avoid human beings, or the inhale of a drug, I have to fight to stop looking at him. We are each other's fix.


	7. Graveyard

I'm waiting in the trees. John is late. I had calculated that he would be here at a certain time, based on the intricacies of his personality, that I have studied for so long. So where is he?

I am amazing, extraordinary and fantastic. His words. That's why I thought that he'd be here. I obviously calculated wrong...

– but I am also disappointing.. A freak. Her words. A boffin. Their words. A machine. His words. He is my only friend. I thought that I was one of his. I suppose that as long as he is in the world, existing and being John Watson I should not care. After all, how could I expect him to mourn me? (No one mourns a broken piece of machinery.)

John's voice. All of a sudden. As real as if he were here. Though, of course, he's not.

There are lives at stake, Sherlock! Actual human lives. Just so I know- do you care about that at all?

It nearly makes me physically jerk.

Will caring about them help save them? I had replied.

I had ignored the question _do you care about that at all__? _and replaced it with my own: _is it practical to care? _John had faltered as he had absorbed what I had just said. Sh- His mouth had closed. Disappointment.

(No one mourns a piece of broken machinery.)

And then I see him. Gradually moving from a slight blur in the forest to a detailed figure. Closer and closer, clearer and clear, he comes. I can almost make out his face. I've been desperate for it: the slight grimace, the scars, the eyes. He limps past the real me, and heads towards where he thinks I am. My fake grave. _Sherlock Holmes_.

That is why he is late, that is why his arrival differed from my calculations, because I don't know him well enough. I didn't think his limp would be this bad. Why is it so? Why had I not foreseen this? Surely my 'suicide' had not emotionally compromised him to this extent? No, it must be that he is starved of danger. Five action-less days have been too much for him since I jumped.

John turns and his hand flattens, rising almost halfway to his brow before he clenches it. Forever the soldier, itching for a salute. There is a small, military nod to the grave. Anxious eyes. Almost-always raised eyebrows are flat. He is folded in on himself. Creased. The curve of his nose is buried in his scarf-

His scarf?

He doesn't have a scarf.

My scarf.

Breathing hitches. "John," I mean to whisper but I say.

He's tense. The tremor in his left hand has returned. I am torturing him.

(No one mourns a broken piece of machinery.)

I read his lips as he speaks. "One more miracle. Sherlock, for me. Don't be dead."

(Except him.)

* * *

**A/N: um I hope you enjoyed that, if that's the right word. Last Sherlock first-person for a while! Sorry about inundating you with them. **


	8. Hostage

Sherlock was sitting on the sofa, skull-less. Mycroft had confiscated it, after Sherlock had confiscated Anthea because she kept spying on him. Unfortunately Mycroft still had John as well. Any swap was still in the consultation stage.

"You don't scare me," said a tied-up Anthea from behind him on the kitchen table.

"I never intended to. I have no sadistic tendencies."

"No sadistic tendencies? I'm your hostage! You've tied me up for over a day now-"

Sherlock glanced at Anthea and huffed a short sigh. "I'm not enjoying it." He pocketed his phone, before resting his fingers together. "Argh! I can't think!"

"Well I can't move."

"Thank your God - Mycroft. He's the one who sends you to stalk me constantly. Being tied up is only inevitable." Sherlock stood up, and stared at Anthea for a few moments as if he was seeing her for the first time. "You could come to some use, with your skull underneath all that flesh."

"Don't you mean a brain?"

"Skull-," said Sherlock distractedly. "I don't need an extra _brain_," he tapped his head. "A skull though…"

"Really?"

Sherlock ignored the skepticism in her voice.

"Shut up! I'm talking to you because you have a skull, not because you can talk back!" Sherlock turned to her, his hands in front of him as if he was choking the air. "_This_ is why I prefer skulls."

Sherlock began feverishly pacing, hands drawn to his lips, with same on-edge energy as someone who bit their nails had, a nervous habit.

"You prefer dead people?"

"Better company."

Sherlock brought himself to the window, pressing the tip of his fingers into the sill, white. He stayed like that for five minutes, staring into the space between the panes, a limitless space, where he wasn't seeing the outside world but a whole series of possibilities.

"Five minutes of silence and you still can't think," said Anthea suddenly "I think I did my job as a skull well-"

"I will gag you if you continue to talk-"

" I cannot believe you're still convincing yourself that it's the skull, not John, which you're missing."

There were a few moments of hanging stillness, silence, before Sherlock walked back to Anthea and untied her wrists.

"Go back to your master and tell him to give me back what's mine."


	9. Ill

They are sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, the air thick with chemical fumes and summer heat, the notes of a case John has nearly forgotten the contents of spread between them. John is watching Sherlock whose his eyes are too heavy even for such a close atmosphere.

"Are you okay?" says John. Sherlock shows no sign of movement. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock's jumps and his eyes open. "What?"

"Are you all right?"

"I was just-"

"Blinking for a long time?"

"Thinking."

"Struggling to hide symptoms from your medically trained friend. You're ill. I'm not an idiot, Sherlock."

Sherlock raises an eyebrow - kind of. Normally, John would groan or snap, but the slightly pathetic way Sherlock's eyebrow struggled to stay up was cute – if it weren't so concerning

"Right, that's it. Get into bed."

"What? No! I'm fine!" Sherlock flattens his hand on the nearest sheet of paper as if drawing energy from it. "Fine."

"Why are you sweating then? Why is your left hand shaking?"

John watches Sherlock struggle to answer. "It's-" Sherlock glances down at his hands, frowning. "Oh."

John folds his arms.

"You've barely been concentrating on the case. You've had a cold for days – been sleeping for longer than usual. Not long enough, but longer than usual. You've been having fever dreams. I heard them. I was going to leave you to it, maybe it would heal on its own – leave you to it as the adult that you apparently are - but you nearly falling asleep at the table is enough."

Sherlock tilts his head, as if encountering something alien.

"I'll go on then, if you still need convincing. You've been swallowing a lot. Seems a small thing to notice but it's hiding your cough, right?" John doesn't pause for an answer. "You sat in the back of the taxi yesterday, made me sit in the front, so I wouldn't see you rubbing at your nose. Which didn't work. You were swaying a bit as you got up this morning. You wore socks with your dressing gown, which I've never seen you do before - feeling a bit cold? And you know the thing that gives it away the most?"

Sherlock opens his mouth slightly but, as John suspected, his voice doesn't follow.

"You haven't interrupted me once."

Sherlock frowns. Then he stands up, walks slowly round the table and stands opposite John, looking taller than ever. John startles slightly when Sherlock's fingers reach into his pocket, but does nothing to stop it. Between his forefinger and his thumb, Sherlock draws out the thermometer John had been carrying around with him for the last few days, ever since he expected Sherlock was ill.

"I knew you noticed," murmured Sherlock, "but I never knew how much... Treat me then, doctor."

There is a moment before John processes the words. "Treat..you?"

"I am not one to argue with well laid out evidence, and that was..." Sherlock blinks. "Treat me so I can continue with the case."

Sherlock is still holding the thermometer. John clasps it, and then takes Sherlock's elbow with his other hand, feeling the cool sweat through the shirt, leading Sherlock through to John's bed. Sherlock sits on it without argument, not asking why they're in John's room, as easy to manipulate as a puppet. John doesn't know if it's the illness or John has stunned him into silence..

"Okay, Sherlock. I am going to take your temperature now."

The process of temperature-checking, and chest-listening, and pill-taking, is quiet. Sherlock is compliant, like a tired toddler, never taking his gaze off John, accepting when he finally lies back, eyes still not closed.

Sherlock is under the duvet now, his black hair the only thing visible, spread over the pink pillow.

"You taught me well, huh?" says John, slightly put-out by Sherlock's silence.

"No," whispers Sherlock. "You learnt well."


	10. Jolt

Sherlock pulsating in front of John, blowing his way through the alleys of London; doing what he loved most; that was, of course, when it happened-

The jolt of pain.

John's ankle twisted, knee hit the floor and his breath caught. He bounced once, twice, on the cold gritted concrete, in dazzling pain but he barely registered it before he was once again moving as Sherlock was surely running, and he, determined, did not want to miss Sherlock in his prime (or get left on the floor) so he pushed down on his hands, put his good foot down and (deep breath) let his sprained foot follow (medical degree suddenly non-existent) to catch Sherlock-

Another storm of pain, watery blurs and time-lapsed images, as he fell. He bounced once this time, his landing being remarkably soft. John realised that he would be left here, until some poor person found him in the morning; Sherlock would have forgotten John (his second choice) to remember the game (til death do them part). With Sherlock, you either keep up or get left behind.

Opening his eyes, his vision filled with the unexpected.

"Sher-"

Hallucination indicated blood loss but he indulged, stretching out a shaking hand, ready for disappointment, towards that sharp jaw, imagining his fingers to resting on that unwanted frown, his thumb hushing those lips-

"John."

But expecting only air - not solid, touchable Sherlock.

John felt a jolt.

Not pain.


End file.
